About This Event
The major sources of energy from fossil fuels are presenting challenges for global warming and climate change, and the use of biomass waste and municipal solid waste (MSW) as energy sources in the direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) will significantly help to address these challenges. The uses of carbons for electricity production in DCFCs have been shown to provide conversion efficiencies up to 80%. DCFC can in principle convert all types of organic solid fuels. Our research investigates the performances of a range of MSW and biomass materials available in Nigeria and globally, as fuel sources in the DCFC. The biomass and MSW are converted to biochar by pyrolysis to give carbon rich particles which can be applied as fuels for the DCFC. Structural and other analyses such as x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and calorific values (CV) were investigated on the biomass/MSW materials. This will have significant impact in a developing economy like Nigeria because, it will add to the electrical power generation of the nation thereby alleviating the problems of power shortage, global warming and climate change. It will provide an avenue where the rural communities can benefit from electrical power supply through the DCFC technology. Other waste conversion method will be discussed.
Dr. Olalekan D. Adeniyi is an Associate Professor of Chemical, Energy, and Environmental Engineering at the Federal University of Technology in Minna, Nigeria. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in the Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Akron, Ohio. This lecture is sponsored by the Fulbright Scholar Program’s Outreach Lecture Fund.